


Doctor's Orders

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, Fluff, Post S1 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 01:03:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: When Belle has a fever, Rumpel does his best to take care of her, which proves rather interesting when she has an unusual reaction to the Land Without Magic’s medicines.Written for the Monthly Rumbelling prompt: "Icee, Doctor, Pixie"





	

**Doctor’s Orders, A Monthly Rumbelling Fic**

**Rated:** G

**Prompt:** Icee, Pixie, Doctor

**Summary:** When Belle has a fever, Rumpel does his best to take care of her, which proves rather interesting when she has an unusual reaction to the Land Without Magic’s medicines.

**Word Count:** 2254

**Doctor’s Orders**

It was unusual for Rumpelstiltskin to wake up before Belle; she had always been the early riser out of the two of them. All the same, he didn’t think much of it. If she wanted to sleep in, then he would be the last person to stop her, and he simply left her curled up in the blankets as he went about his morning routine. Once he’d showered and shaved and returned to the bedroom, however, he was beginning to think that there was something wrong. Even if he did wake up before Belle, she was usually awake by the time he was finished with his ablutions, and she would help him to pick out his tie for the day. Today, however, she was still exactly where he’d left her, curled up tight and buried in the blankets.

Brow furrowed, Rumpel crouched down beside the bed, gently brushing her messy curls out of her face.

“Belle?” he whispered. “Belle, sweetheart?”

She gave a minute moan, burrowing further into the covers, and it was then that Rumpel noticed that her hair was damp and matted with perspiration. He snaked a hand into her cocoon, touching her forehead and finding her burning up.

“Belle, you’re running a fever,” he said, making to take his hand away, but then Belle gave a grunt of protest, wriggling one hand free and grabbing his wrist to keep his palm pressed against her forehead.

“Nice and cool,” she mumbled.

“If you’re too warm, sweetheart, maybe you ought to come out of the blankets a bit.” Belle shook her head violently.

“My head’s too hot but the rest of me’s too cold,” she grumbled, readjusting his palm against her forehead and closing her eyes. “My head hurts.”

Aware that he wasn’t going to be able to move for a while, Rumpel eased himself up off the floor and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I think you have the flu,” he said. She’d probably picked something up from one of the children at the library’s storytime session the previous day; it was the season for viruses after all, and the children did tend to crowd around her, spreading their germs.

Belle just snuffled, pulling the covers back up to her chin. “Don’t wanna get up.”

“You don’t have to get up, sweetheart. The library can survive without you for one day.” He stroked Belle’s forehead and she gave a sigh of satisfaction at his soothing touch, interlacing her fingers through his.

“Sweetheart, you do know that I’m going to need that hand if I’m going to go about my day.” Rumpel chuckled as Belle made a moue of protest.

“Can’t you stay?” she pleaded. “You make me feel better.”

“I’m still going to need that hand if I’m going to take care of you.” He had already decided that he wouldn’t open the shop today. If anyone needed him, then they would just have to wait. Right now Belle needed him, and making her feel better was far more important than whatever inane request for magic the town might have that they could just as easily work out for themselves if any of them could be bothered to pick up a book. Although, naturally, if the library was out of action… Rumpel gave a snort of quiet satisfaction. He had felt that he and Belle were being taken for granted lately; maybe this would give the town pause.

At length Belle released his hand and he leaned in to kiss her fevered brow. “I’ll make you some tea. You just rest and get better.”

Belle nodded, closing her eyes and rolling up in the blankets again, and Rumpel made his way downstairs, setting about making ginger and lemon tea, setting it on a tray with a glass of ice water and a plate of crackers for her to nibble if she felt like it. He paused, brow furrowing, and he realised that he’d never known Belle get ill before. Even in the dead of winter back in the Dark Castle, she had never succumbed to a cold. At the time he hadn’t thought so much of it; he himself was protected from such mortal ills by his magic, and since Belle had never been ill, he had never had cause to think about it. The thought made him uneasy. Perhaps it was time to call in a favour with Dr Whale. It couldn’t hurt, after all. Bearing the tray back upstairs, Rumpel wondered if he was perhaps overreacting, but then he shook his head. Belle had spent years locked away with no fresh air, there was no wonder that her immune system would be weakened from her extended time indoors, which was a worrying thought. If she could catch the flu, there were all sorts of other things that she could contract. He’d never forgive himself if she ended up with pneumonia. Better safe than sorry.

Belle was dozing again when he returned to the bedroom and set the tray down on the nightstand by her head, but her sleep was troubled and fitful, and it pained Rumpel to see her so uncomfortable. Carefully, he settled himself on the bed beside her, and almost immediately Belle turned over in her sleep and snuggled up against him. He glanced down, raising an eyebrow, and a sheepish, half-asleep face looked up at him.

“You’re nice and warm,” she mumbled. “And I’m hot and cold and miserable all over. Don’t leave.”

Rumpel stroked her hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Eventually she fell back into a proper slumber, and Rumpel chanced to extricate himself from her grip, leaving the room so that he could call the hospital. It took a long time of irritating hold music before he was finally put through to Dr Whale, and he was on the verge of giving up, going over to the hospital and forcibly dragging the doctor back to his home when eventually the man answered, sounding rather harassed. There had either been an influx of magic-related injuries in the wake of the return of magic to the town, or he had been following through on his intentions to try dating the nuns and had received short shrift for his efforts. Either way, through a mixture of gentle persuasion and reminders of favours owed, he managed to get the doctor to agree to come out and see Belle later in the day.

By the time Rumpel returned to the bedroom, Belle had woken and was sipping her water, making a little face at it.

“Something the matter, love?”

“It tastes funny,” Belle muttered. “Not bad. But not like normal.” She gave another sniffle. “It’s nice and cool though. My throat hurts.” She drained the glass and put it back on the side. “I just wish it had more flavour.”

Rumpel returned to his place on the bed beside her and she rolled over. At least she wasn’t quite so wrapped up in the duvet now and there was hope of her fever cooling a little.

“Do you want something to eat?” Rumpel coaxed. “Maybe some soup?”

Belle shook her head. “Not hungry.”

“You need to eat something, sweetheart,” Rumpel wheedled. “Something with salt or sugar, at least. How about some ice cream?” He remembered looking after Baelfire when he’d been ill, and wracked his brains for what had appealed to his feverish son. Obviously, there hadn’t been any ice cream in the Enchanted Forest, and given their often straitened circumstances, there hadn’t been any salt or sugar either, but Bae had loved sweet things, and cold honey had usually done the trick.

Belle looked up at him. “Can I have an Icee please?”

Rumpel blinked. “Pardon?”

“A blue raspberry Icee from Any Given Sundae.” Belle nestled back into the pillows. “That’s full of sugar and it’s nice and cold.”

Rumpel weighed up the options. Whilst he was hoping Belle would eat something a little more substantial, hence the crackers he’d put out, he couldn’t deny Belle’s logic, and if it would make her happy then he really couldn’t deny her when she was so miserable.

“All right. I’ll go and fetch you one.”

He left the room and decided that it would probably fortuitous to use a little magic in the procuring of the Icee, poofing himself the distance to the ice-cream parlour and purchasing the lurid blue treat with the minimum of fuss before poofing back into the house. If Ingrid was at all surprised by Rumpelstiltskin coming into her shop in not particularly brilliant weather in order to purchase an Icee, then she didn’t show it, and the entire trip took only a few minutes. Although they had instilled a ‘no magic in the house except in exceptional circumstances’ rule, he thought that this counted as an exceptional circumstance. Belle’s health was of paramount importance, after all.

Belle narrowed her eyes at him as he re-entered the bedroom.

“You were quick,” she said, but the accusatory tone in her words was lost somewhat by the snuffle in her voice. “Did you poof it here?”

“The transaction was carried out entirely without the use of magic,” Rumpel said, hand on his heart in mock offence. “I merely expedited the transportation procedure.”

“Rumpel…”

“I didn’t want it to melt, love.”

Belle considered this for a moment then gave a nod. “Good point.” She held out both of her hands for the slushie and Rumpel handed it over, settling back on the bed beside her as she slurped at the straw.

“Feeling better?”

She nodded, continuing to sip the frozen treat until it was about half empty, whereupon she snuggled back down under the covers. Rumpel reached across to touch her forehead; she was still feverish but at least she seemed more content. He sent a little pulse of magic across to the nightstand to keep the Icee cold, and he felt Belle smile where she was pressed close beside him.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you did,” she mumbles. “But thank you, my gallant sorceror.”

Rumpel gave a little bow, not that she could see it with her eyes closed. “I and my magic are always at your service, sweetheart.”

Belle fell back to sleep soon after that, and Rumpel let her slumber on. Sleep was the best healer after all, better than anything magic could bring or anything the doctor could prescribe. Of course, if the doctor could prescribe anything to help, then that would certainly not go amiss.

Whale arrived a couple of hours later, just as Belle was waking up again. Rumpel hovered in the bedroom doorway as the doctor examined her. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the man, but, well, he didn’t entirely trust the man.

“I’m going to assume that the blue tongue is the result of the slush, not an actual symptom,” the doctor said as he listened to Belle’s chest and took her blood pressure, before concluding that it was the flu and prescribing an anti-pyrexic to help with the fever.

Hearing that it was just the flu was reassuring to Rumpel; even if he had come to that conclusion himself, when it came to Belle, he did have a tendency to panic. Slightly. Sort of.

Once the doctor had gone and Belle was tucked up with plenty of fluids to hand, Gold slipped out to pick up the prescription. Belle took the pills as directed and soon fell back into a doze.

That should, theoretically, have been the end of it. Rumpel was sure that with a few days of rest and medication and careful nursing on his part, Belle would be back to her normal self.

He had not counted on the unexpected side-effect of the anti-pyrexic.

Belle slept off and on for the rest of the day, occasionally emerging from her cocoon of blankets for water, magically-cooled slushie, and crackers and for bathroom trips, and Rumpel was just getting ready for bed himself when she suddenly woke and sat bolt upright in bed.

“Belle? Are you all right, sweetheart?”

She looked across at him, her brow knit tight.

“We need to build a house for the pixies.”

Rumpel blinked. “Pardon?”

“The pixies. In the garden. They’re cold, they need a house.”

“Belle, love, there are no pixies in the garden, I can assure you that. Pixies don’t exist.”

“Ssh!!” Belle reached over and pressed a finger to his lips. “They’ll hear you and you don’t want to hurt their feelings!”

As she leaned in close, Rumpel could see that her pupils were huge in her bright, feverishly excited eyes, and he began to put two and two together.

Belle was high off her medication.

He dutifully decided that it was probably best not to make the rejoinder that he had first thought of, namely that if the pixies were outside in the garden then they couldn’t hear him refuting their existence in the bedroom. Instead, it would probably be a better idea to humour her.

“All right, my love,” he said, slipping into bed beside her and letting her get comfortable before he spooned up behind her, combing through her messy curls and pressing his hand against her forehead, smiling when her fingers entwined with his and kept his hand where she wanted it. “When you’re feeling better, we’ll go out and build a house for the pixies.”

“Thank you.”

Rumpel chuckled as Belle shifted in his arms, wondering if she would remember any of this come the morning and her fever breaking.

 


End file.
